All or Nothing (17 page)

She was in her late fifties, he guessed, but molded by the surgeon’s scalpel from nose to thighs. Not a line on her face, not a crease in her dress, not a hair out of place. She was as sanitized as an operating room, as cold as the air–conditioning and as unsexy as a china doll. For a second he wondered about a possible relationship between Beau Harmon and Bonnie, but no––she had married his old man.

She came slowly down the stairs, walking carefully in strappy, kitten–heel sandals that also matched her dress. “Who are you?” she asked again, a faint frown of irritation between her brows as though she wasn’t used to seeing men like him in their white T–shirts and jeans and scuffed boots messing up her elegant front hall.

“Excuse me, ma’am––Mrs. Harmon. My name is Giraud. I have an appointment with your husband.”

She came toward him on a waft of perfume, but he knew under its façade she would be odorless, with no feminine scent to entice a man. Sterile as a steel scalpel, he thought.

“And what do you wish to talk to my husband about?” She stood at a distance as though afraid of contamination, inspecting him with hard blue eyes.

“Hmm . . . it’s kind of a personal matter, ma’am. To do with his father,” he added, seeing from her quick frown she wasn’t going to take that for an answer.

“Boss Harmon’s been dead these five years,” she said briskly. “And good riddance it was too.” And with that she stalked past Giraud into the all–white room and closed the door carefully behind her.

Shutting out the unpleasant sight, Giraud thought.

At least she didn’t slam it, and in that showed some iron self–control. The woman was an iceberg. He’d bet it was she who kept the air–conditioning down to meat–hanging temperatures.

“This way, please, Mr. Giraud.” The butler was back and Giraud loped after him, boots clattering on the marble.

Beau Harmon was sitting behind a grandiose desk, the kind Giraud figured Napoleon would have owned, carved and gilded and immense. And like Napoleon, Beau was a diminutive figure, stocky as a peasant in contrast with his string bean iceberg of a wife. He was a good deal younger than her too, blond hair, ruddy skin, bleached–blue eyes and the mottled nose of a man who partook of good bourbon rather more often than he should. Giraud knew his guess had been right and that Beau had married money. Why else would he have taken her on?

Beau did not get up. “Take a seat, Giraud,” he said coldly. “And then explain to me exactly why you are here.” He glanced pointedly at his large, expensive gold watch, the kind commodores of yachts might have worn to sail the high seas. Al had no doubt it told the time on three continents and hoped Beau could also tell the time right here in Texas. With the kind of two–inch brow Beau had, he wouldn’t bet on his intellectual capabilities.

He sat in the shiny red leather chair on the opposite side of the big desk from Beau. “I’m here, sir, to discuss your father’s wife. Bonnie Harmon.”

“Ex–wife,” Beau said rudely.

“Excuse me, sir. In fact,
widow
would be the correct appellation.” Giraud could get fancy with words when he wanted to.

Beau grunted, sitting back in his own red leather chair––except his was twice the size of Giraud’s and had the effect of making him look like a little boy in his father’s office. Which was, in fact, Giraud thought, probably what Beau had been for most of his life. Until he married Miss Moneybags.

“Mrs. Harmon is missing, sir, and I have been employed to find her. She disappeared four weeks ago in California, where she was working as a real estate agent.”

“Hah! Bonnie? An estate agent? That little tramp couldn’t do more than sling hash at Benboy’s Steak House. You sure we’re talking about the same person?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure.”

“Well, I’ll be darned. Can’t say I’m sorry she’s gone missing, and I can’t say I wouldn’t be sorry to see her come to a bad end. That woman almost ruined my life, Mr. Giraud.
And
took off with a great deal of my pa’s money.”

“She was married to your father, right?”

“Right. She lit into town with her red hair and high heels. Met him at Benboy’s Steak House, where she waitressed––he went there a couple of times a week. She must have schmoozed him, come on to him, y’know––and him an old man, for Christ’s sake. Anyhow, before you knew it she had him under her spell. And the old fool wanted her, I guess she made him believe he could still do it, y’know.”

“There’s no fool like an old fool,” Giraud said helpfully.

“Before we knew it he was planning on marrying her. Loretta swore he had shamed her family––my wife’s family goes back fifty or so years,” he added proudly. “Larson’s Oil, you may have heard of it.”

Giraud had and he nodded.

“Anyway, she had him in her coils and nothing we could do could stop the old fool. Loretta had an intervention, tried to get Pa committed to a very nice little institution out near Austin that she knew about. There had been some little . . . unhappiness . . . in her own family once, so she knew from experience it was a fine place.” He ran his hands through his sparse blond hair, bleached–blue eyes squinting across at Giraud. “A man like you will understand these things,” he added, and Giraud nodded that yes he did.

“But Bonnie wasn’t having any of that. She must have gotten wind of it somehow and had her own team of medicos and psychiatrists and the like there to meet us, with papers already stating that Pa was
compos mentis
in all respects. Except in regard to her, of course,” he added bitterly.

“To cut a long story short, the silly old bastard married her and four months later he was in his coffin. Or what was left of him was, after the fire in bed.”

“Was old Mr. Harmon a heavy smoker, then?”

“Sure he was. God knows how he didn’t get lung cancer, must have been the bourbon kept it at bay. A bottle of ninety–proof will combat any disease, in my opinion.”

“And then there was the question of your father’s will.”

“Hah!” Beau levered himself out of the massive chair. He stalked to the window, put his hands behind his back and stood gazing out at the new landscaping, looking for all the world like a picture of the exiled Napoleon in Elba gazing out across the sea to France, the land of his dreams.

“He left her everything: the business, the house, his Cadillac and all his money.”

“Naturally you contested that.”

“You bet your ass I did. Loretta’s attorneys came down on that woman like a ton of bricks. Told her they were going to instigate a further investigation into Pa’s death––and into her past if she didn’t play ball. Scared the shit out of her, I guess. Anyway they came to terms and paid her off. Got rid of the bitch.”

Giraud cleared his throat before he asked the delicate question. “And exactly how much was Mrs. Harmon paid, sir?”

Beau swung around from the window. There was a bitter smile on his florid face as he said, “Two hundred thousand bucks.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Take it or leave it, baby, they told her. So she took it. Was out of town the next morning, cash in hand. Wouldn’t take a check. Not even a cashier’s check. Her sort never does.”

Al knew he was right. “And you never heard from her since? She never came back asking for more cash?”

Beau shook his head. “Nope. Nothin’––until you showed up askin’ questions. And I’m not even going to ask you what you think has happened to her. I just plain don’t want to know. I don’t want my family name dragged through the mire again.”

Al knew he couldn’t promise Beau that, but he thanked him for his time and said his good–byes.

The door to the white room stood open slightly as he followed the butler back down the hall and he caught a glimpse of Loretta Harmon’s masklike face turned his way.

As the front door closed solidly behind him he breathed a great sigh of relief. In his opinion Beau and Loretta Harmon deserved each other.

Marla knew she was a long way away––submerged in a bad dream that kept replaying itself over and over in her head . . . her poor aching head. . . .

In the dream she could see a bagel lying on Vickie Mallard’s kitchen floor, so she knew that she must be in the land of the living. Unless they had Western Bagels in heaven, that is.

Her blurred gaze slowly focused on the man in the black sweater kneeling over Vickie. She shook her head, puzzled. She must be hallucinating. Her spine crawled with fear. She just didn’t want to believe this. She lay perfectly still, afraid to breathe.

Suddenly two burly cops slammed through the door, guns raised. In seconds they had Steve Mallard on his face on the floor in all that blood and gore, guns at his neck as they handcuffed him.

In her dream, tears trickled down her bruised face. Tears of what? Relief? Pain? Sorrow?

A cop with a kind face loomed over her. “Hang on, sweetheart,” he said, “the ambulance is coming, we’ll have you at the hospital in minutes.
Just hang in there.
”

Then the paramedics rushed in, hovering over Vickie. The way the angels carrying Vickie’s spirit to heaven would, Marla thought wearily. They had Vickie on a gurney, now. Blood still oozed from her, dripping onto the floor as they lifted her.

And then the dream disappeared into blackness.

When Marla came out of her dream, she was in a hospital bed and Giraud was holding her hand. There was a look of such tender anxiety on his face it was almost worth getting nearly killed for. She managed a painful smile.

“Well, hi there, honey,” she croaked in a voice that certainly didn’t sound like her own. That’s what happened when you were almost strangled, she guessed. The shock of the terrible memory widened her eyes, making her gasp and clutch tightly to Giraud’s hand. She never wanted him to let go.

“Hi there to you, honey.” He stroked tendrils of soft blond hair back from her battered face. His gaze lingered on the bruised throat and blackened eyes, on the gauze covering the knife wounds on her arms; on her battered head. By some miracle Marla had flung herself to one side, deflecting the blow from the wine bottle. Otherwise she would not be here today.

Giraud felt the same way he had when his brother was shot. Murder was in his own heart as he looked at her. The need for revenge boiled hot inside him.

“A neighbor heard screams,” he told her. “She called the cops.”
And only just in time, or Marla would be dead,
he thought, his throat tightening with emotion.

“I should never have let you get involved. I should have known better.”

She took his hand in both of hers, squeezed it tightly. “Didn’t I do good, though?” she said in that new, husky whisper. “Marla Cwitowitz, P.I.? I caught Steve.
In the act.
”

Al nodded, still churning inside. He had almost lost her. If he had not allowed her to help him on this case, it would have been
him
Vickie Mallard called,
he
who would have gone there to talk to her.

“You did good, Marla. I’m promoting you to equal partner. And I’m also not letting you out the door alone again.”

She gave him a lopsided grin that changed to a look of anguish. “Oh, my God. What about Vickie?” she whispered. “Is she   .   .   .   ?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word
dead.

“She’s in a coma. She was strangled, as well as stabbed. The knife punctured an artery and also her lung. The doctor tells me it missed her heart by a fraction of an inch.”

Marla breathed again. “Lucky,” she murmured.

Giraud wasn’t so sure. With her terrible wounds, nobody could say for sure what Vickie Mallard would be like when she came out of that coma.
If
she ever did. Like her husband, Vickie was playing an all–or–nothing game now. Lose, and she was dead.

The medication was taking Marla down again and he held her hand for a long while as she dozed. He wanted to pick her up in his arms, kiss her all over, hold her close and never let anyone near her again. He would kill anyone who even looked the wrong way at her. He took a deep unsteady breath. He knew this was not the right way to feel. Revenge achieved nothing. Marla was alive. She would survive, with maybe a couple of scars, but nothing a good plastic surgeon couldn’t take care of.

But no one could fix the anger that burned him as he looked at her.

Eventually he left her to sleep and wandered out into the shiny hospital hallways in search of a coffee machine. He slotted his coins in and held the paper cup while the boiling brown liquid euphemistically termed “espresso” splashed into it, thinking about Steve Mallard and the way things had turned out.

As he sipped the coffee, he wondered why Steve had done it. Had Vickie found out the truth about him and Laurie after all? Had she found out Steve had killed Laurie?

The puzzle was not yet complete.

Steve Mallard was being held at the Twin Towers jail, an ultramodern fortress right in the heart of downtown L.A.––presumably, Giraud figured, so those incarcerated would be able to gaze longingly from the slitlike windows at more fortunate people going about their daily business in the busy streets below.

It had always seemed an odd location for a prison to Giraud, but never more so than when he accompanied Ben Lister on a visit to his client. Outside, you could be in McDonald’s in a minute; at the fancy Music Center for a show in five; Chinatown and the terrific seafood at Mon Kee’s––especially the huge scallops––in less than ten. He guessed it added an extra gut twist to a criminal’s sentence, knowing all that was available––so close and yet so far, as they say.

Steve had been arrested by the LAPD on the attempted homicide of his wife. He had, as Marla had pointed out, been caught in the act. Now he was brought in handcuffs into a private room for the meeting with his attorney.

Giraud slipped his conscious mind deliberately into neutral as he took a quick, assessing glance at the man who had almost killed Marla. He had to be neutral, that was his business. If Marla were not involved he would not have felt this way. Now he had to force himself to revert to that impartial mode, that way of thinking. Of course his subconscious still boiled, but for now he was a man with ice water in his veins.